A few years ago, if a brand wanted “influence”, it called a TV star’s agent, paid a fee with plenty of zeros and got a photo with the product. Everyone was happy until the sales report came in. Today more and more brands are doing the exact opposite: they work with dozens of people who have a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of followers, but whose communities actually listen to them.
I look at this from two angles. One is that of someone who has built online stores and knows what a new customer costs. The other is from Retargeting, where we got used to measuring everything: where a visitor came from, what they saw, what they bought. From both angles the conclusion is the same: influencer marketing has left the “let’s give it a try” phase and is entering the phase where it has to account for itself.
Why budgets are moving from celebrities to micro-influencers
A celebrity gives you visibility. A micro-influencer gives you trust. The difference sounds subtle, but in sales it is huge. When a famous actress poses with a face cream, everyone knows she was paid. When a mum who has been writing about baby products for three years recommends a particular stroller, her followers believe her, because they have watched her criticise ten others.
Micro-influencers have smaller audiences, but tighter and more clearly defined ones: runners, vegan cooks, anglers, board game fans. You don’t need a million people glancing at you in passing. You need a few thousand people who are actually your customers.
Instagram for image, YouTube for trust
In 2018 Instagram is the main influencer platform. This summer it announced it had reached around a billion monthly users, Stories have become the way people show their day, and since June it also has IGTV for longer videos. For brands, Instagram is where your product shows up in someone’s real life rather than in a studio.
YouTube plays a different role. That is where people look for reviews, tutorials and comparisons. A ten-minute video in which someone unboxes your product, uses it and honestly tells you what they don’t like is more convincing than a hundred pretty photos. If you sell something that needs explaining (electronics, cosmetics, sports gear), take YouTube seriously.
The fake follower problem
This is where it gets less pleasant. Where there is money, there are shortcuts. Followers can be bought, likes can be bought, and there are even groups where people trade likes and comments to fool the algorithm. Early this year a New York Times investigation into companies selling fake followers made a lot of noise, and in the summer Unilever announced it would no longer work with influencers who buy followers. The signal is clear: the market is starting to clean itself up.
For a small brand, a few simple checks go a long way:
- Read the comments, don’t just count them. If they are all “amazing!” plus emojis from accounts with no photos, you have a problem.
- Check how the account grew. Sudden jumps of tens of thousands of followers overnight are rarely natural.
- Compare likes with followers. A huge following with very little engagement is a red flag.
- Ask for the in-app statistics (where the audience is, how old it is, how many views their Stories get). A serious influencer will send them without taking offence.
Disclosure is not optional: #ad and #sponsored
The second big problem is the lack of disclosure. Many influencers post paid content without saying so, afraid of losing credibility. The effect is the opposite: when followers find out, they feel cheated.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters to dozens of influencers and brands last year, insisting that the commercial relationship be stated clearly and visibly, not buried among ten hashtags. In the UK, the advertising and competition watchdogs published a guide for influencers just last month, and in other European countries the rules on hidden advertising are increasingly being applied to social media too. Instagram introduced its “Paid partnership with” label precisely to make this easier.
My advice is simple: put it in the contract that every paid post must be clearly labelled with #ad, #sponsored or the platform’s own tag. And while we’re on rules, don’t forget GDPR (the EU data protection regulation that came into force in May): if an influencer runs a giveaway for you and collects contact details, it must be clear who processes that data and why, as I explained in my practical GDPR guide for online stores.
Measuring beyond likes
Likes are applause. Nice, but they don’t pay the bills. The question is always the same: how much did you spend and how much came back? The good news is that you now have simple tools to answer it:
- Unique discount codes for each influencer. You see exactly how many orders each one brought in.
- Tracked links with UTM parameters, so Google Analytics shows you traffic, carts and sales.
- Dedicated landing pages, especially when the audience arrives on mobile and has no patience.
- Affiliate commissions, meaning you pay a percentage of the sales generated, not just for the post.
A customer brought in by a trusted influencer can come back many times, and email marketing still drives the most sales, so keep in touch with them afterwards.
The influencer paid on results: affiliate models are back
The most interesting trend I see this year is the move from a flat fee per post to performance-based models. Good influencers are starting to accept this, because a decent commission on a loyal audience can earn them more than a fixed fee.
It isn’t a new idea. Affiliate marketing has been around for as long as online stores have. What has changed is that the affiliate is no longer a coupon site but a person with a face and a voice. I think in the coming years we will see more and more platforms connecting brands and influencers directly on the basis of results. I like this model because it resembles the way I work myself: if you don’t deliver results, you don’t get paid. In practice, a hybrid works best at the start: a small fixed fee for the effort and production, plus a commission on sales.
Contracts, rights and authenticity
Put everything in writing, even for a small deal. The contract should say what content will be delivered and when, whether you approve the copy beforehand, how the advertising is disclosed, how long the posts stay up, whether the influencer can work with a competitor at the same time and, very importantly, whether you can use the photos and videos in your own ads. Good influencer content can work brilliantly as a paid ad on Facebook or Instagram, as I discussed when comparing Facebook Ads and Google AdWords, but only if you own the rights.
And now the hardest part: let them be themselves. The biggest mistake brands make is sending a script written by an agency and asking for it to be read word for word. Followers notice immediately. If you picked the right person, trust the way they talk. If you don’t trust it, you picked the wrong person.
A quick guide for a small brand
- Start from your customer, not from the influencer. Where do they spend their time, whom do they follow?
- Look for people who already talk about your category, even if they only have a few thousand followers.
- Start with a small test: five to ten influencers, free products, unique codes.
- Ask for full disclosure: #ad or the partnership label.
- Measure sales, not likes, and only continue with the people who deliver.
Influencer marketing is neither magic nor a scam. It is word of mouth that has moved onto the phone. It works exactly as well as it is honest.
How do you work with influencers? Have you tried micro-influencers, discount codes or commissions? I’d love to hear what worked for you and what didn’t.